Between the holiday and some unfortunate germs I haven’t been around for the past week. I hope everyone had a wonderful Turkey Day and that no one was injured shopping on Black Friday. I will make every effort to have something extremely interesting happen this week so next week’s entry will be a little more exciting. This week’s picture was waiting for me in my inbox (along with about a hundred other emails!) when I returned. It was taken the day of the infamous cow walk so I thought I would include it to give a better visual. Have a wonderful week!
Archive for November, 2007
Even the best jobs require time off….
Introducing Dakota
I would like to introduce you to our newest program animal – Dakota. Her scientific name is Didelphis virginiana but she is known commonly as the Virginia opossum. Opossums are fascinating creatures but most people don’t know much about them. A couple of fun opossum facts: they are the only marsupial (pouched mammal) found in North America, they are practically immune to rabies and most venomous snakes found in their range. One thing most people know about the opossum is their interesting defense mechanism, which is known as ‘playing possum’. It is also called ‘playing dead’ but what actually happens is that the opossum goes into a catatonic state – their heartbeat slows way down, their breathing is almost impossible to see, and smelly gooey white ooze comes from their eyes. This is a very good defense against many carnivores, since they won’t/can’t eat something that is already dead, but not such a good defense against cars. Dakota’s mother met this unfortunate fate and thus she has been hand raised. She came to us three weeks ago from a zoo in Michigan and is currently in quarantine. (Every animal that comes into the zoo must go through at least a 30 day quarantine period to assure they are bringing no transmittable diseases with them.)
I’m introducing you to Dakota today so you can go along with me on the journey of training her. No, I’m not training her to dance or anything like that. We train animals here that the zoo for veterinary and program purposes. With Dakota, I’m training her so we can better exhibit natural opossum behavior while on program. I’m at the very beginning of the training process with her – target training. The video clip is a portion of a training session. The goal of target training is to have the animal touch the target and/or follow the target around. In Dakota’s case the ultimate goal for target training is for her to follow the target around so we can show classes how she moves. In most training processes there is a cue and a bridge. Think of training a dog: the cue is the command and the bridge is either the clicker or a “good dog”. Then a reward is given. It’s the same process here. Watch the video and you will hear me say “target”. This is the opossum’s cue. At the same time I am saying this I put the target close to her (we are in the first steps – where I am establishing the connection between the cue, the bridge, and the reward). When she touches her nose to the target you hear a strange noise. That strange noise is a dog training whistle. That’s her bridge. I’ve already worked with Dakota to establish that when she hears the whistle she knows food is coming. She’s a little Einstein and that took only a couple of sessions of blowing the whistle then giving her favorite food (egg and fruit). After I blow the whistle, or ‘bridge her’ in training terms, I reward her with a small piece of her favorite food. Soon she will follow the target around and I’ll be able to reward her every two or three whistles. Or at least that’s the plan. We’re also working with Dakota to make sure she is comfortable being handled. That is why you see me reach down to stroke her. No, she doesn’t actually like it a whole lot. Opossums are solitary animals and as such don’t feel the need for lots of touchy-feely stuff. But program animals are handled more than other zoo animals and so it’s a good idea to have them comfortable being handled. That’s actually one of the reasons I started training the opossums: so we could shift them into and out of their carriers and present them on program without having to handle them a great deal. It makes it much better for the opossum and it makes for a better program.
Tena Tails: Peek-A-Boo Tarantulas
Giving enrichment to the program animals I work with on a daily basis is on of my favorite parts of my life. You find your heart growing three sizes (a la the Grinch) when you see an animal enjoying enrichment. How can you tell they are enjoying it? It depends on the species. One of the forms of enrichment very commonly used is called browse. Browse is basically tree cuttings. (the name browse comes from the fact that many animals ‘browse’ through trees looking for their favorite leaves) Browse is fed to many animals in the zoo as a type of food enrichment. I give browse to most of the program animals, but not to eat. It is the different smells and textures that they enjoy. The reptiles enjoy it most. Snakes wake out of their usual slumber to slither over and flick their tongues over (smell) the new things in their area. Lizards and turtles climb over and under the leaves and branches smelling and sometimes snacking. This week, one of the neatest reactions came from one of our tarantulas. As soon as I put the small branch in her area she moved underneath the leaves. After a few minutes she started poking just the front part of her body out from under the leaves then darting back under the cover of the leaves. It almost looked like she was playing peek-a-boo. She really wasn’t – there was a cricket (aka dinner) nearby and she was acting just like wild tarantulas do: hiding from her prey then popping out to ambush. And that is the point of enrichment – to allow our animals to act as they would in the wild.
That’s enough for this week. Pop in next week to meet the latest addition to our program animals!
Tena Tails: Spinning Cows
One of the greatest things about my job is that it’s seasonal. Summers are Zoo Camp On the Move and Springs are ZooMobile Madness. This time of year, while I’m still going into schools and educating, the part of my job I focus more attention to is working with the program (and some other) animals. Another great thing about my job is that I am always learning something. Last week, for instance, I learned what to do if you find yourself holding a lead (leash) that is attached to a 750 lb spinning, kicking, dancing Dexter cow. You see apparently those commercials that show happy cows standing placidly in their fields are all wrong. I had no idea. I’ve been around cows most of my life and that is pretty much what I knew them to be – big lumbering critters that will always win a staring contest because they pretty much had nothing better to do. It turns out that when Dexter cows, or at least our Dexter cows, get excited they do this spinning, kicking dance. I do the same thing when I get excited but I don’t have horns. So, if you ever find yourself in the same situation here’s what you do: stomp your foot and give a loud, forceful “Hey!” This gets their attention and they’ll stop to look at you. And then, being cows and having a very short attention span, they will forget they were excited and carry on with their walk. Walking the farm animals is something we do for them to provide them with enrichment. The picture this week is of Willie (the best donkey ever!) and me coming back from one of our frequent walks. If you look closely you can see a green bag attached to the pocket of my jeans. This is where the treats are kept. And the treats are my secret weapon for getting Willie to move when he is having a “stubborn donkey” moment. My secret is out!
LET’S HEAR IT FOR THE BOYS
By Zookeeper Christy Hudon
You can call them African wild dogs, cape hunting dogs, painted dogs, whatever you would like to call them. But to me they are “the boys”: Kubaki, Phantom, Signal and Thunder. The dogs have been one of the best challenges of my zoo keeping career. Having worked most closely with hoof stock for much of my seven years at RWPZ, it has been a good challenge trying to understand the pack fundamentals of the wild dog.
The four boys, I say boys since they are just over two years old, are all brothers. It is completely normal for them to be staying together. At about two years of age they would have left their natal pack and dispersed together in search of a group of females to form their own pack. A pack in the wild is made up of related males with a group of related females that have left their own natal pack. So this is a very natural time for the boys to be coming to us.
The dogs came to us from The Bronx Zoo. Bonnie Soule, the Zoo’s veterinary technician, and I got a crash course in wild dog care and behavior from their keepers at the Bronx just a few days prior to their arrival. But much more has been learned by observing and note-taking since their arrival. As the boys have settled in, their personalities have come to light and they are easier to tell apart.
We first learn a distinguishing white marking on each of them till we learn their personalities.
Kubaki: the dominant one when it’s needed. He can be distinguished by a white “3” on his left front shoulder.
Phantom: the champion trainer (he is the first at his training station and doesn’t move till the session is over). He has a white spot at the base of his tail and between the shoulder blades at the base of his neck.
Signal: quite shy but will often be right behind Thunder helping to find enrichment (and stealing it from Thunder). He has three spots right in a row down his right side.
Thunder: the most curious (the first to find enrichment and will do anything in his power to get it) and just a big goofball starting much of the play fighting. He is most distinguished not by his white spots but by his “floppy” ear (he is fine—it happened to him when he was a pup).
Their interactions are truly fascinating. As the dogs have developed their dominance, we are learning their social structure and rituals. Whether they are doing their ritual greetings, or enjoying a paper mache aoudad (lovingly referred to as “fake Libbi”) you can always learn something about them and how their pack structure is functioning.
The wild dogs make three types of vocalizations. The most commonly heard is the high pitched yipping or chattering. The dogs do it when they greet each other after a nap, when they are playing with enrich ment and even when they are eating, getting down to those last few mouthfuls and check-ing out what each other has left.
The second vocalization, but rarely heard, is their growl. Generally not directed at each other but towards a new person/keeper that approaches a bit too quickly. It is more of an unsure/warning vocalization and it is generally Kubaki who will growl if the pack is all together.
The only other vocalization they make is a “hoot” sounding just like an owl. It is used to locate members of the pack when they are separated. We have heard it only when they were crated to be shipped here. So it is actually a sound we hope not to hear again.
Providing the dogs with enrichment that will interest them isn’t hard, they like to tear things up; whether it is sticks, bags, boxes or card board tubes. If it can be ripped up into hundreds of pieces they love it. The boys also enjoy trying to make everything stink as bad as they do. Rolling on everything from fresh hay, a stick with aoudad scent, an orange, a shavings bag with a sprinkle of garlic powder or even their own poo. We are always interested in trying new scents and keeping things interesting for the boys.
The wild dogs have been a great addition to the plains of Africa, not only for the public but for the keeper staff as well. Just a small tip—they are most active in the morning and later afternoon, just as in the wild, otherwise they are likely a mound of sleeping dogs.
Ah, what a life!
Tena Tails: The beginning of many “wild” adventures
Almost every time someone finds out I work at a zoo their eyes light up. “What a fun job that must be!” is the usual first thing they say. And they are right. Working at a zoo is one of the most fun jobs I can think of. It is also one of the most challenging and rewarding. Those of us who work here take for granted all the wonderful, cool, fantastic, incredible stuff/things we get to see/do every day. Seeing that light in the eyes and the hearing the awe and envy in the voice of others remind us that what we do is in fact unique. But it’s not like saying you work at a hospital or an insurance office. Those careers can be easily pictured. The average person has very little idea exactly what goes on behind the scenes at a zoo. I know I didn’t when I started volunteering here 6 years ago. That’s why this blog has been created – to give you a glimpse into one woman’s work at the zoo. So you too can share in the joys and fun (and the occasional heartbreak) that comes with working at Roger Williams Park Zoo.
My name is Tena and I will be your virtual guide to my little corner of the world here at RWPZOO. Here are some of the things I’ll be sharing:
-Life in the education department – any time you mix animals and kids hilarity and inspiration and learning will ensue. I’ll keep you up to date with our doings and tell funny stories and quotes as they occur.
-Enrichment – here at the Zoo we try our best to make our animals life as rich and full as they can be. That could be anything from walking the miniature Sicilian donkey (Willy, the greatest donkey ever!) to giving papier-mâché prey items to the wild dogs. Stay tuned for cool video and explanations from our general collection. Also, I am the enrichment co-coordinator for our education collection and will share the stories of this. There could be video clips of ferrets playing in a big box of shoelaces, pictures of our wallaby (Vincent) getting into his usual mayhem, or all other sorts of craziness.
-Training – I’m one of the people attempting to train some of our education collection to exhibit natural behaviors on programs. You can go along on this ride with me as I try to figure out how to keep getting outsmarted by such things as rats and opossums.
No two days are ever the same here so check in weekly to see what I have managed to get into. And to get to know what goes on here behind the scenes. After all, it’s your Zoo too.
